Dear Friends,
Recently a
friend shared some exciting news about one of her friends who
recently had come to faith in Jesus Christ. She and her husband had been
repeatedly witnessing this person, but their efforts were of no avail.
Unresponsive to their
efforts, she would typically respond "I am a good person, and I don't
believe in all of that 'sin stuff' you are always talking about."
Through tears of joys
my friend related how a friend of hers had shared the good news of the gospel
with her, and she had just professed her faith in Christ.
She told me how a
friend had been witnessing to her and that she kept telling me the same thing
you had always been telling me, and suddenly it made sense.
Her story reminded me
of a similar story told by pastor and author Steve Brown.
Steve
shared, "I talked to a young lady about Christ, about three years ago. I
had gone to her within the context of an evangelistic program, and I sat down
with this young lady and her husband. and I took almost an hour to explain the
gospel and how Jesus loved her and how she could receive Jesus and become a
Christian."
"Her response was
blank! A dead wall! I want you to know I never saw anybody so
insensitive to the Gospel of Christ."
"She was sweet
and nice about it, and she simply said, 'It doesn't make sense.' 'I don't
understand it.' 'I don't know how it can be made real in my life.'"
" About a year
later, I had an opportunity to tell her again about Christ, and after I
finished, do you know what she said?"
"She said, 'Steve,
why didn't you tell me this before?’”
"What was
happening? I'll tell you what was happening. Through the work of the Holy
Spirit, God was revealing Himself to her. Her heart had been finally touched,
and the scales of unbelief had been removed from her eyes."
"I said,
'Jane, what do you think I've been telling you for a year now?'"
A person can hear the
gospel again and again and yet remain unmoved, and then suddenly the Holy
Spirit moves within, and a heart is changed and a person is born again.
What previously she
couldn't believe and which sounded stupid and ridiculous now became alive and
the result was life changing.
1 Corinthians 2:14,
tells us that "the unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the
spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them
because they are spiritually discerned."
When someone talks
about sin's power to blind you to your sin he is talking about something
frightening, something radical, something that has the power to prevent you
from seeing the devastating consequences of your sinful nature.
Author and pastor John
Piper writes, "No one merely decides to experience the Christian
Scriptures as the all compelling, all satisfying truth of one's life. Seeing is
a gift. And so, the free embrace of God's word is a gift. God's spirit opens
the eyes of our heart, and what was once boring, or absurd or foolish, or
mythical is now self-evidently real."
It is the supernatural
act of the Spirit that opens our eyes and penetrates our hearts and brings
truth that results in genuine repentance. Such truth reminds us that it is our
sin that nailed Christ to the cross, and it is His forgiveness that enables us
to experience a life changing event that makes us new persons. We
joyfully discover that the "old has passed away, the new has come."
If this message seems
too strange, and too ridiculous to believe, you now know why. The scales from
your eyes have yet to be lifted.
There is something
wrong with us. "We are dead in our trespasses and (the) sins in which (we)
once walked." Ephesians 2:1, and it is only the Holy Spirit that can touch
our hearts and through faith make us alive.
Because this friend
joyfully discovered the truth that all her "sin stuff" really
mattered, she found a new life that lasts forever, and so can anyone who
simply says yes to Christ and allows Him to take those scales from your
eyes.
Yours in faith and
friendship,
Tom
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